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Monthly Archives: December 2012

Let’s take a look at the Chinese Dota scene beyond the big-name flashy teams that we see at major tournaments…

Organized in a grassroots fashion by forumgoers on Baidu’s Tieba forums, a 242-team Dota league and tournament for university and college teams took place this month, partially celebrating Baidu Tieba’s 9th anniversary, and partially to bring together the massive grassroots fanbase of Dota in China.

According to this link, teams representing many major universities and academies around China, plus many other teams from lesser schools and colleges, participated in the first group stages, played at a Best of 1 format.

Speaking of grassroots — this was organized entirely through coordination between the “Universities and colleges” forum on Baidu Tieba in collaboration with each individual school’s forum, plus the “Dota” Tieba forum, and picked up by Baidu themselves, who chose to feature and support this event as one of the ‘Tieba 9th Anniversary events‘.

In the last match of G-League 2012 Group A, LGD and DK met in a battle to the death of the titans. The loser of this match would be out of G-League S2 2012 entirely. Ultimately, LGD took the match and the last group advancement spot in a hard-fought 2-1 victory over DK.

Afterwards, we got a hold of Sylar for an interview, and he shared with us his joy after their victory and some post-match thoughts.

Q: Congratulations to LGD for the win over DK, allowing you to successfully advance from your group. Please say hello to all your fans out there!

Sylar: Hello everyone, I am the carry player from LGD — Sylar.

Q: Can you tell us your feelings at the time?

Sylar: Very happy! Once again we have the chance to make it to the finals.

Q: Watching the match today, we got the feeling that your team’s bans and picks were quite educated, what preparations did you make beforehand?

Sylar: Because after we lost the first game, we realized that if we did not first pick Lone Druid, they would certainly go for him. So we banned Lone Druid, then we managed to grab Anti-mage first, meaning we wouldn’t be afraid of playing it out to late game. Yet, in the second game we still made mistakes, otherwise we could have ended the game earlier.

Q: In the third game you selected a relatively less-seen Undying, what were your considerations in selecting this hero at the time?

Sylar: Actually, Undying has been a good pick recently, where he was either picked or banned constantly. But lately perhaps because of changes to their systems, various big teams have picked him less. Still, this hero is very strong in trilanes where you need to protect someone.

Q: Now that you’ve secured advancement from your group, you guys have a few days of down time, any plans?

Sylar: We should take a small break, and then we’ll be looking for a team to do some training, to prepare our next matches.

Q: Any plans to have some fun around Shanghai here?

Sylar: Maybe, will have to look at the team’s arrangements.

Q: Tomorrow will see B group matches kick off, can you give us your view on the four teams there?

Sylar: IG should be pretty familiar to everyone, they’re a very strong team. And then there’s MUFC, I don’t know if it’s the version with Hyhy, that version of MUFC is stronger. TongFu is also a strong team in China, but they haven’t played much with us lately so I don’t really know what they’re like now. Even though VG is a new team, they are still quite good, in scrims with them we win some, lose some.

Dotaland note: Short interview. Xiao8 talks about their win over ForLove, and makes a prediction for their upcoming match against DK.

Gamefy: First off, congratulations to LGD for winning this match. Director-8 go ahead and say hi to our viewers.

xiao8: Hello everyone, I am LGD’s xiao8, Ning Zhang (张宁)

Gamefy: In your first match the day before yesterday, LGD.cn lost to LGD.int, which could be described as falling into a hole in terms of your advancement from the group. Then your first game in your match against ForLove, you also lost. What were your emotions like immediately at that time?

xiao8: Personally I felt quite conflicted and anxious inside, but each of us managed to make the needed adjustments for ourselves, and played better in the following games. Our discussion and the changes we made after the first game were quite positive.

Gamefy: After the first game, your entire team went out for a brief team discussion, what did you guys talk about?

xiao8: First summarized the causes for our loss in game one, including individual mistakes. And then we talked a bit about our bans and picks for the next game.

Gamefy: Opening the second game, your team’s early game also didn’t go very smoothly. What were the adjustments you made in game to break out of this disadvantage?

xiao8: Actually, in terms of laning we had the advantage in all three lanes, the only thing we were behind in was kills. Their roster leaned towards teamfighting, while ours was more focused on later game. In mid-game after we had an item advantage, we grouped up for teamfights, and gradually leveraged that advantage to get more ahead.

Gamefy: In the third game, ForLove last-picked Lich. As their opponents at the time, can you analyze for us why they made this pick?

xiao8: Because they felt that with me on Enigma, once I got BKB for my ult, they wouldn’t have much to deal with that. Picking Lich allows them to eat and deny creeps during laning, but the biggest thing was that Lich can interrupt Enigma’s ult.

Gamefy: Some fans and forumgoers have expressed worry over your bans and picks, what is your view?

xiao8: Every roster has its own strengths, so as long as one is able to execute to those strengths, it is possible to achieve good results! The only thing is seeing what kind of roster fits which team.

Gamefy: Even though you won this match, it feels like you’re still at the edge of a cliff. You’re set to face DK in a few days, how will you approach that?

xiao8: I think it’s a 50/50 matchup. We will analyze their playing style and try to devise a strategy for beating them.

Q: After winning against LGD.int, it can be said that everyone is back to the same starting point in group A. Yet, DK’s performance still had everyone anxious. Talk a bit about the loss in your first game against LGD.int?

Super: I feel like our roster had been countered by theirs, plus we didn’t manage their strengths and tactics well, and let their Chen really shine, especially in his ganking of two lanes early on. We pretty much didn’t win any teamfights in the beginning.

Q: After losing the first game, what changes did you guys make?

Super: We summarized the reasons behind our loss, and made big changes to our bans and picks in the next game, which allowed us to successfully take it.

Q: In the second game, you used Beastmaster’s axes and killed the other side’s courier. Viewers expressed surprise at this; what did you think of it at the time?

Super: When my axes killed the courier, I knew that I had achieved a significant advantage in my lane. Also, this has happened in our training many times before (laughs).

Q: So Beastmaster’s axes being able to kill the courier was something that you learned from training?

Super: Indeed, so I was able to use this in a real game.

Q: Next match is a life or death fight for you guys, and your opponent will be LGD.cn. What do you believe will be key points to focus on?

Super: LGD.cn is an extremely strong team. We both understand each other’s style, so winning will be determined by execution at the time of the match.

Q: Although DK hasn’t had the best of form lately, still many fans support you. Anything you wish to say to these fans?

Super: Hope everyone will continue supporting DK, I believe that we will still make it out of the group.

Dotaland note: She’s a well-known model in China, half a million followers on weibo, yadayada… If you watched the Chinese G-League stream last night, there was a brief segment there where they only described her as a ‘fan’ of Dota’. Supposedly, she’s xiao8’s girlfriend — a common belief amongst Chinese fans. Some other people claim that she also used to be ZSMJ’s girlfriend. Would explain her love for LGD seen here (specifically, LGD.cn)……

Dotaland note: Meet Vici Gaming! This should be all you ever wanted to know about the players for this new and upcoming Dota 2 team, and then some. Very well-produced, impressive stuff.

Team name: Vici Gaming esports club

Abbreviation: VG

Team introduction: Club established September 21, 2012. Based in the city of Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, China. VG is short for Vici Gaming, the meaning behind it is “I conquer”. The club currently has a Dota2 and LoL squad; the LoL squad is currently under construction. In the future, VG’s goal is to build a dynasty of a club, provide opportunities for more competitors to challenge their dreams, and we welcome more esports lovers to join our family.

On Dec 26, Team DK, who had previously been crushed 2-0 by ForLove in the first match of the tournament, arrived at the venue to spectate the match between LGD.cn and LGD.int in the G-League Season 2 Dota2 offline tournament. After the first game in the match, Gamefy staff got a quick interview with DK’s Dai-god.

Q: Hello, Dai-god, say hello to Gamefy’s fans?

Dai: Hi everyone, I am DK’s Dai. My name is Zengrong Lei.

Q: Can you reveal to us why you guys are here watching this match?

Dai: Yesterday we lost to ForLove, today we’re here to take a look and scout out the match between LGD.cn and LGD.int.

Q: Yesterday you lost to ForLove, what was the cause of this?

Dai: Yesterday’s loss to ForLove was truly down to our own mistakes, in many places we didn’t play well enough. From our form, to our bans/picks, there were problems throughout.

Q: After losing to ForLove, your chances of advancing from your group aren’t looking great, how will you deal with this in upcoming matches?

Dai: Our next matches are against LGD.int and LGD.cn; both teams are very strong, plus LGD.cn has just won The Asia 2012 and will be on good form, so playing them will be exceptionally difficult.

Q: Then, after viewing their match today, any thoughts or plans on how to counter them?

Dai: Not really anything specific, the most important thing is still to play to our full potential.

Q: Thank you Dai-god for the interview.

The skies of change are always unpredictable — just after our interview with Dai, LGD.int posted their breathtaking 24-0 win over LGD.cn in game two to begin their turnaround.

Afterwards we also managed to speak with other DK members present at the venue and got their thoughts on the match between LGD.cn and LGD.int going on at the time. Super expressed that he was speechless, and that he couldn’t watch any longer. xB, Dai, and 357 all said that they felt LGD.cn tried to play too defensively and ‘camped’ too hard. BurNIng straight up exclaimed that LGD.int was impressive! And DK’s manager Farseer coolly analyized that, from the bans and picks it was already evident that LGD.int would win; they obviously had practiced this roster before, previously they had used the exact same roster before! Commnetator Nekomata (aka Danche 单车) thought that LGD.cn should really ban Chen — Enchantress with no jungle is useless, while Chen with no jungle can still push well. LGD.int’s dual gank worked well, leaving LGD.cn with no real options!

Analysis: Indeed as Farseer and Nekomata said, it was evident from the game that this was something LGD.int had practiced before. It is obvious that in the current patch version, ban/picks are very important, and LGD.cn in the third game decisively banned the excellent Chen, Luna, and Nyx. But nonetheless, for a top tier team such as LGD.cn to lose a game by 24-0… is still a bit hard to swallow.